St. John’s River State College contracted Commercial Acoustics to fabricate and install custom acoustic wall panels in their newly renovated classrooms and general purpose room. The panels required custom angled cuts and were wrapped in 3 different colored acoustically transparent fabrics. Our team installed the acoustic treatment in the classroom and general purpose room over the course of about 2 weeks.

Importance of Classroom Acoustics

Proper Acoustics are critical in classrooms where a lot of lecturing takes place. If students can’t understand teachers and vise versa then you won’t have a very conducive learning environment. The target reverb time in a classroom is typically between 0.4 and 1.0 seconds, which is about the same as what would be required in a conference room.

Fortunately, the acoustic wall panels were specified into this project prior to the classrooms being in use. Had the rooms been in use without any acoustic panels installed, there likely would have been problems with echo and reverb. Panels can still be installed post-occupancy, but you would incur more costs (class relocation during install, extra cost of an overnight install, etc.) than if they had been installed prior to classroom use.

The panels were mounted using a 2-part metal z-clip system, just a few inches below the acoustic ceiling grid. Installing the panels up high keeps them out of reach in case anyone is tempted to touch one, this prevents any stains or dents to the face of the panel. Unless tackable faced fiberglass is required (typically in gyms), only the edges of the panel can be protected using resin hardening.

Benefits of Acoustic Panels for Schools

Classrooms typically require acoustic treatment in some form, whether it be the use of acoustic ceiling tiles, acoustic wall panels or a combination of the two products. In this case, the classrooms did require both products, which will provide a sound acoustic environment for both students and teachers.